You’ve set fire to my sleep
and my dreams rise
and disperse
like heat from the skin,
bright
and high
like the moon
in its dark cradle.

If you lay still,
embrace the weight of
that humming plum inside your chest
that keepsake house of cards,
I will tell you where I hid the ghost
And what was lost
in the conflagration.

We will rise from bed
with the few things necessary
for this life
the few things
we will inherit again
when we cease to impose
our image on glass and water
in some dense pocket of the earth
somewhere underground.

The rest can burn,
combust
dissolve
Rain down like stark dust
On your long bones and shoulders
the living border
between my skin
and your simple signs –
we will find the time
invent an ending
and a prize,
new meanings for surrender.